Contemplating Witchiness
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: [Let's Become Witches and Destroy the World series] It's a thought she really shouldn't think before the end of the road, but sometimes she thinks it anyway.


**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, l19 - a series containing two to five fics (totalling over 100,000 words), and for the One Big Series bingo, #003 - ficlet. This is the first fic in the series and more of a side, but the next prompt is one of the doozier and the first novel in the series. Hopefully a couple of months - Aiko lit the fuse under my PMMM muse again so it's the perfect opportunity. :) But in the meantime, enjoy the little ficlet for the ficlet prompt!

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 _Let's Become Witches and Destroy the World_

 **Contemplating Witchiness**

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She shouldn't entertain the thought. She really shouldn't. She'd seen Madoka as a witch and it was a sight she never wanted to see again, a sight she wished non-existence for even more fiercely than Madoka's death - and why, she wondered sometimes, because wasn't death the end?

But it was so much harder to see Madoka in reach but beyond redemption. So much harder to fight the witch or watch someone else do the fighting. So much harder to be the gun that put a bullet through her head instead of blaming someone else, anyone else, for the death.

And so much easier to contemplate becoming a witch alongside her.

But it wasn't possible in that timeline. It would never be possible in that time and so Homura had to spin her shield and go back, go back and try and change things again. And then, of course, Madoka would be alive and smiling and she had to save Madoka, try and save her life and then despair when she failed, despair and turn time back again.

She couldn't go on, or back, forever. She'd crack eventually, she knew; there was no such thing as eternal hope and every time she tipped the time-glass, a bit of her chalice of hope was wasted too. Would it be this timeline? The next one? Several from now? She wouldn't know until it was almost too late, no matter how prepared she was. Unless she saved Madoka -

But most of her realised that, even if she did prevent Madoka from becoming a magical girl, even if she did save her life and defeat Walpurgisnacht and escape the six week lock she'd trapped herself within, her own fate was written. She hadn't saved enough after saving Madoka (especially since she was yet to save her) of herself to find a way to escape the inner witch.

So, sometimes, it was a happy dream in which they embraced the inner Witch together.

There were, of course, several things wrong with that dream. Firstly was that her goal was to prevent Madoka from ever making the contract, therefore making it impossible for her to become a Witch. Secondly was that becoming a Witch herself would mean kissing any chance of rewinding that timeline goodbye - and it may be worth it, but it would be a last, desperate, attempt to stay with Madoka if it came to that. Thirdly, it would take something dramatic for kind-hearted Madoka to resign herself to the fate of a Witch. How many times had she told Homura to end her before it came to that? How many times had Homura done exactly that - after they'd found out the truth, after she'd told Madoka the truth, after the transformation hinged on the edge of beginning...

And that was after so many times when they couldn't work out what was happening. Some of those times, Homura had fought Kriemhild Gretchen without even knowing it was Madoka, and those early fights were easy, far easier than the confrontations that followed once she knew. Ignorance was truly bliss and that bliss was lost many timelines past, and scattered drops of her hope chalice as well.

But if it came to that, if her soul gem went back, she would rather it happened in a world where Madoka still existed in some shape and form. Even as Kriemhild Gretchen. Even in a world that had only ten more days to live - because that would be extra ten days with Madoka than an existence as a Witch alone.

And she'd push those thoughts away, because thinking about them made it all the more real, all the more possible - and it was still too early to despair, still too many things she hadn't tried, still more timelines to try and salvage Madoka from.


End file.
